Night Moves

Peel nodded to himself. Well, well.

'Hmm. It seems that there are several dozen accounts affected. I'm sure it's only a temporary aberration.'

'You mean I can't get my money out until it's fixed?'

'Ah, well, I'm afraid so, yes.'

'I see.' That was all Peel needed to hear. His bowels clenched and went cold. He had a sudden, deep suspicion that what the Indonesian bank would find on closer examination would be electron money: demon dollars that glittered brightly if you looked at them peripherally, but that would turn to smoke and vanish if you tried to lay your hands on them. Bascomb-Coombs was having him on.

'I'm sure this will be cleared up very soon. If you will give me a number where I can reach you, I shall call as soon as we've resolved the problem.'

Right.

He gave them his number, but Peel wasn't going to hold his breath waiting for that money to clear. He'd been skewered, and he knew who was holding the shaft, too.

Time to go and have a chat with Mr. Bascomb-Coombs. Yes, indeed.

But almost as he thought this, his phone buzzed. The private line.

'Yes?'

'Hello, Terrance.' Well, well. Speak of the devil.

'Hello.'

'I'm afraid we have something of problem. It seems his lordship has given orders cutting my access to my — ah — toy. He has shut down all the apparent external lines and posted a guard to keep me from physically entering the building.'

'Really? Why is that?'

'I suspect the old boy doesn't trust me.'

Good bloody reason for that, Peel thought. Then another thought popped up. ' 'Apparent external lines,' you said?'

Bascomb-Coombs had his visual mode off, but Peel could almost see him smile. 'Very good, Terrance. Naturally, I have a few digital and microwave transceiver links carefully hidden around the hardware. Even a landline wired into the power supply, if anybody thinks to use jammers. They'd have to take it down to the floor- boards to cut off my connection, and since they don't know it's there, they won't. If they shut it off, they know they might not ever be able to get it up and running again.'

'I see. And what does this mean?'

'I believe we shall have to deal with the old boy. Using your area of expertise.'

'You think so?'

'I'm afraid I do. I must ring off now, but I'll call you back shortly. Give it some thought, would you?'

The scientist broke the connection. Peel stared at the wall of his office.

God, the man had brass balls. Here he was, trying to have Peel himself iced and pretending as if nothing had happened as he ordered him to kill their mutual employer. Bloody nerve, all right.

He would, Peel realized, be better off with both of them gone. Bascomb-Coombs had to depart this mortal coil, of course; a man who tried to have you assassinated could hardly be allowed to live. And Goswell might be in his dotage, but he wasn't completely senile. Sooner or later, he might tumble to the fact that his security chief had sold him out to the mad scientist, and that would be extremely bad. He doubted the old man would reach for his black powder shotgun to blast him, but certainly he would be able to see to it that Peel never worked in the U.K. again. With a million in the bank, such a thing hadn't worried him, but if the money was no more than a ruse by Bascomb-Coombs, then Peel would be, in a word, screwed.

If Bascomb-Coombs went missing and his lordship fell over with a stroke or heart attack, then Peel would be in the clear, nobody to tell tales. He might not be rich, but he would still be marketable. With a spotless record under his lordship, some other rich fool would find him worthy.

Victory was better than defeat, but there were times when you had to cut your losses and retreat, to survive long enough to try another tack. He had pulled in Ruzhyo because he needed a goat for taking out the old man; but now, given the change of situation, it was better that Goswell die of natural causes, so his security chief wouldn't look bad.

Bascomb-Coombs would simply disappear in such a way that nobody would ever find him.

Peel smiled. Yes, this was all unfortunate but not beyond repair. Time to fix things and get on with it. Kill them all — God will know his own. One of the early Popes had said that, hadn't he? Better them than me.

Chapter 34

Wednesday, April 13th

London, England

During a lull in the increasingly frantic activity at MI- 6, Toni got on the com to call Carl Stewart.

'Hello?'

'Carl?'

'Ah, Toni. How are you?'

'Fine. Look, I'm up to my eyebrows in work, and I can't see any way to get out of it for class tonight. Sorry.'

'Not a problem. We'll miss you, but I understand.'

'Thanks.'

After a short pause, he said, 'Well, you do have to eat, though, don't you? Perhaps we can have lunch or dinner later this week?'

Toni's stomach did a small lurch. It wasn't the words but the tone of them that raised the alarm. Was he asking her out on a date? That would have been her most direct question, but Toni wasn't quite ready to ask it. Should she follow that up? Or brush it off? It was moot if she said she was too busy. But, no. She had been doing more waffling lately than she liked. It was time to start facing these things head-on.

'Are we talking about two silat students getting together for a bite, Carl? Or are we talking about something else?'

'Well, I was thinking along the lines of two people who found each other's company interesting and who had a deep interest—pentjak silat—in common.'

A date.

Toni's knee-jerk response was to tell him she was involved with somebody and decline politely. The window for her comment opened… and stayed open. He was a vital man, attractive, and he had a skill she much admired. If she and Stewart went to the gelanggang—the fighting floor — for a serious match, he would win; she did not doubt it. She couldn't say that about many people she knew. She was sure that even her own guru, now in her eighties, was no longer up to her level, and she was pretty confident she could keep up with most martial artists, men or women, when it came to one-on-one, however egotistical that might be. But she knew she couldn't defeat Carl. And that was, in its way, a large part of the attraction. She had a momentary vision of what it might be like to lie naked on a bed with this powerful and skilled man, and it was not an unattractive daydream. Not at all unattractive.

She felt a shard of guilt stab her. 'I'm pretty much involved with Alex, Carl, and I appreciate it, but I think maybe we ought to keep things strictly professional.'

'Ah, too bad. But certainly I understand. I appreciate your candor. Do let me know when you can come back to class.'

'I will. Thanks.'

After she hung up, Toni had a sick feeling, a cold stirring in her gut. It had, for a moment, been tempting. More so than she wanted to admit. She could have gone down that path, and it bothered her that she had even